Spiritual plane: Flight attendants bow at altar of on-time departures

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2013-07-17

The flight attendants set up the altar on board the plane.
(Internet photo)

A photo showing two female flight attendants kneeling in an attitude of worship before a shrine with two boards bearing the Chinese characters "zheng dian," literally meaning "on schedule," has gone viral on the internet. Netizens say the photo shows how flight delays, a normal nuisance in China, are a torment for flight crew just as much as for passengers, reports the Guangzhou-based Yangcheng Evening News.

The photo shows an altar with fruit and food before which two flight attendants wearing the uniform of Xiamen Airlines kneel side by side, holding their hands together in the traditional "baibai" gesture of worship gods and ancestors. However, they are not bowing to the statue of a deity or a portrait of an ancestor; they are rather giving thanks to a departure board that assures them their flight will depart on time.

Xiamen Airlines denied claims that the two flight attendants on the photo had been fired, saying they had not violated any company rules.

Nor, apparently, was the photo a joke. This "ritual" is said to have begun in 2011 and photos of flight attendants from different airlines praying for punctuality have been shared on the internet since then. The ritual does not imply that those attendants are crazy but that — like everyone else — they are fed up with delayed flights, netizens said.